1 Of My 10 Cherry Barbs Not Eating For Over A Week

[8o8GTR]

1 of my 10 cherry barbs is not eating.  One recently died due to some unknown illness and the rest started exhibiting the same syptoms of lack of appetite and swim bladder disease.   A person at the local petstore here suggest i treat the tank with Furan -2.  So after 2-4 day cycles of Furan 2 all the fish seem to be OK except one.  One seems to just float at the top and refuses food.  I do notice that the fishes color is slightly lighter than the rest.  I just did a 25% water change the other night.  Anything else you guys can recommend would be great since i hope id ont loose her.  The fish are approx 1.5 years old (my friend gave them to me as fry).
 
Tank size:29 gallon.
pH:7.1
ammonia:0
nitrite:0
nitrate:0
tank temp:81 degrees F

 

[8o8GTR]

Anyone have any tips to try to get it to eat?

 

[NeonFlux]

Hello 8o8GTR,

Sorry to hear about your cherry barb not doing well! I would like to help give you advice on how to get your cherry barb to eat, but first, hmm, it seems like your nitrate is at dead zero? Is your tank cycled and fully established or do you have a really strong nitrate remover? It should around 5 to 10 ppm at least.. 0 nitrate could give you blue green algae. But yeah, clean new water changes are your best friend when it comes down to any fish sickness. So do a large water change, and see if it may help. You could feed the barb some flake food mixed with garlic juice to entice him/her to eat. You may also really consider quaranting the barb in a small 5 gallon or 10 gallon tank to make sure he/she doesn't spread the disease around to other barbs.

 

[8o8GTR]

Thanks neonflux, havent actually had this tank up for that long yet.  Is it possible that the 2 females that died recently and this one are just a bad batch?  I noticed that all the males i got from somewhere else are healthy and doing well.  Will quarantining help the fish?  A local petstore fish person said that with community fish quaranteening them sometimes causes added stress and causes the fish to die faster?  I am not sure what to do, though its been getting skinnier by the day.  Ill test the nitrate again soon, the reading i gave was from last week monday not the day i posted.
 
Thanks!

actually as a side note this tank was just set up as an inbetween tank... im planning on relocating all my cherry barbs to my 40 gallon breeder as soon as i get a new light source and i finish washing some of the flourite i have in storage.

 

[NeonFlux]

Could be a bad stock with underlying sickness due to neglect..By the way, did you water/temperature acclimate the 2 females before putting them in the tank? I'm sure you done your research on that right

If you just drop them right in, they may go into shock and die. Quarantining will definitely help.. what the LFS person said is not true.. keeping an quarantine will not cause stress (well maybe a little bit, all fish go through stress when placed inside a small bag and moved around inside cars and etc) and would not cause the fish the die faster, they would die faster if you keep them in the quarantine tank without having it cycled properly. Keeping a quarantine tank will give you an opportunity to check, treat for illness, sickness, problems and you will prevent your main tank from potentially being infected from the new fish. You should keep an extra filter in your main tank for a few months, and then when the time comes around to quarantine, you could use the established extra filter to instant-cycle the quarantine.

Anyway, what are your water parameters this time around again? If I may ask, what kind of water testing kit are you using? You should use the one by API, they work really great and are pretty accurate.

-William

 

[Josie*paolillo]

If the tank has not been set up for long, I'm guessing this is more to do with water quality issues than anything else.

What symptoms of swim bladder did you see? I think it would be highly unlikely all the fish had swim bladder problems at the same time, and is far more likely to be ammonia/nitrite poisoning.

Adding medications when you don't know what the issue is is a common mistake, and can often make things much worse. I you are cycling with fish, you need to be monitoring parameters daily, and doing a water change whenever ammonia/nitrite gets above 0ppm.

I would honestly start water changes to get rid of the medication, a few back to back 30% water changes, spaced an hour apart will help greatly.

Are you using a new testing kit? If so, make sure you bang and shake all the bottles until your arms feel they are about to drop off! The reactants can settle on the bottom, and need mixed up again before you will get a accurate reading.

 

[8o8GTR]

Sorry i'll clarify a little better....  The most of the  fish started off with a gill infection, it was very very red...  only 1 fish at a time had issues swimming...As of this weekend the water has been changed 25% every few hours.  All the fish are swimming normally now except the one fish that has not been eating.  Haha good advice Josie... def didn not shake the testing materials vigorously, and the kit i got right before new years.  This tank was just serving as an inbetween tank until my 40 gallon breeder is up and running.  The fish swims with all the fish now... just doesnt eat... ive tried the garlic water mixed with flake food and frozen brine shrimp.. .still no luck.

Could be a bad stock with underlying sickness due to neglect..By the way, did you water/temperature acclimate the 2 females before putting them in the tank? I'm sure you done your research on that right

If you just drop them right in, they may go into shock and die. Quarantining will definitely help.. what the LFS person said is not true.. keeping an quarantine will not cause stress (well maybe a little bit, all fish go through stress when placed inside a small bag and moved around inside cars and etc) and would not cause the fish the die faster, they would die faster if you keep them in the quarantine tank without having it cycled properly. Keeping a quarantine tank will give you an opportunity to check, treat for illness, sickness, problems and you will prevent your main tank from potentially being infected from the new fish. You should keep an extra filter in your main tank for a few months, and then when the time comes around to quarantine, you could use the established extra filter to instant-cycle the quarantine.

Anyway, what are your water parameters this time around again? If I may ask, what kind of water testing kit are you using? You should use the one by API, they work really great and are pretty accurate.

-William

Testing kit by API also... when i quarantined the original 2 females that died i had a 5 gal tank running for about 6-8 hours right next to my 29 gallon tank before transferring the fish in.  The 5 gal tank had basic gravel and some plastic plants

 

[Josie*paolillo]

When a fish gets red gills this is often a sign of high ammonia levels, it means the ammonia is burning their gills. The water changes have obviously helped.

Keep up with the water changes, try not to worry about him not eating, fish can't last a while without eating. Regular water changes, and monitoring of the parameters will really help

 

[8o8GTR]

When a fish gets red gills this is often a sign of high ammonia levels, it means the ammonia is burning their gills. The water changes have obviously helped.

Keep up with the water changes, try not to worry about him not eating, fish can't last a while without eating. Regular water changes, and monitoring of the parameters will really help

Thanks! how frequent should i do the water changes to aid in recovery?  normally i just do it once a week 25% and test the water 3 days after the  water was changed.

 

[NeonFlux]

Depends on the ammonia levels.. If they are sky-high or medium-high, then do a large 50% water change to drop it, and be sure to dechlorinate too to make sure all the chlorine, metals, and etc and detoxified and don't mess with your cycle in your filter and gravel bed. Keep checking every 2 days or so making sure ammonia, nitrite are not very high and keep up with water changes.

 

[8o8GTR]

thanks  guys for the awesome tips!